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A Journey Through the World's Biggest Economic Boom and Environmental Bust

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When a Billion Chinese Jump:
A Journey Through the World's Biggest Economic Boom and Environmental Bust

November 10, 2010//11:00am — 12:15pm

Speaker:Jonathan Watts, The Guardian

To understand China and its relations with the outside world, one needs to understand its environment. Jonathan Watts argues in his new book that with filthy water, choking air pollution and an unsustainable appetite for resources, China's development has pushed our planet to the limits and intensified international competition for scarce resources. In his book When a Billion Chinese Jump Watts takes a down and dirty look at China's ecological challenges and a bird's eye perspective on why China is different from anything experienced by other countries during a similar stage of development. Traveling the length and breadth of the country and drawing on more than 200 interviews with senior politicians, scientists, businessmen and individuals, his presentation at this November 10 CEF meeting will consider some of the ecological walls that could hinder China's growth and increase stress with other nations, as well as whether China's clean energy development

Watts is Asia Environment Correspondent for The Guardian, a former president of the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China and vice-president of FCCJ. His book, When a Billion Chinese Jump, is a 100,000km environmental travelogue that traces the course of China's development from coal mines and cancer villages to eco-cities and science labs. Starting in a mountain paradise and ending in a blasted desert, Watts has talked to individuals involved in every aspect of the crisis, from tiger farmers, illegal miners and a Shanghai cosmetics maven to the engineers, artists and activists trying to prevent catastrophe—and profit from climate change.

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